RIVULETS

RIVULETS 

Rivulets of tears fall from my eyes,

The call of the cold, the pallor of the prize.

Either motionless as a slaughtered dove

Or dyskinetic as a discordant dream,

My destiny's clenched in fisted glove.

Salty tears in rivulets, in salty desert streams.

Dyskinetic legs that flail, arms that do the same,

I would seek my retribution if I knew just who to blame.

Easy to blame the medicine, the levodopa pills.

They cause the extra movements, but without them I'm too still,

And everyone's got something, I've no right to file complaint,

So I stay quiet as a church mouse and stoic as a saint

The rivulets flow down my cheeks, dissolving all my war paint.

Rivulets of regret surround me, the fear I've caused it all,

Insecticides that I once sprayed the reason for my downfall.

Meanwhile they're finding pesticides being sprayed near schools,

23 pesticides in children's fruit cups, it leaves me ill at ease,

A breeding ground for Parkinson's, harbinger of disease.

Those pesticides are in the air, the air we all must breathe,

 invisible to the human eye, more deadly than they seem,

They insinuate themselves into our lives,

Destroy our sleep and murder dreams

They infiltrate our precious lakes, our rivers and our streams.

Someone's got to do something, picket the factories, call the EPA,

If not we're all complicit, we're all just sitting fools,

Pesticides they have no place in our air and in our schools.

I'm raising hell and taking names, making sure no one forgets

And the tears that meander down my face, are not foreign or misplaced,

They are tears of concern for the human race, salty rivulets.

 

-Bruce Potts

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